Several prior art methods provide for treated hydrocarbon-based fuels. Many of such methods utilize a microemulsion technique to produce the treated fuels. Such microemulsions are two phase systems and suffer from a number of disadvantages. The microemulsions typically undergo phase separation over time during storage due to changes in environmental factors (such as, but not limited to, temperature). Once phase separation occurs, the microemulsions fuels either cannot be used or suffer from significant degradation of performance characteristics. Microemulsion fuels contain significant quantities of detectable water in the fuel composition, which contributes to the instability of the fuel during storage. In addition, in the absence of phase separation, the microemulsion fuels typically suffer from disadvantages such as reduced BTU content and reduced flash point, both of which impact the performance of the microemulsion fuels. Many of the microemulsion systems described in the prior art utilize added alcohols to improve the formation of the microemulsions. The use of alcohol can increase the susceptibility of the microemulsion fuels to phase changes induced by small amounts of water in fuel components or introduced by atmospheric condensation, especially when the concentration of alcohol is over 5%.
Therefore, the art is lacking a conditioned hydrocarbon-based fuel with improved performance, handling and storage characteristics. The present disclosure provides such a hydrocarbon-based fuel. Significantly, the conditioned hydrocarbon-based fuel disclosed is produced without utilizing an added alcohol component and without detectable-free water content. Furthermore the semi-solid activator is also produced using only organic components, comprising hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Furthermore, the present disclosure provides methods for producing such fuel, intermediates formed in such method and components for use in such method. Such improvements have not heretofore been appreciated in the art.